


you’re a flame in my heart.

by fade131



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, chanyeol and suho are also around, entirely too much suggested at backstory that is absolutely never expanded upon sorry bye, magical powers, some suggestions of minseok/jongdae and luhan/kai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade131/pseuds/fade131
Summary: Because he has no choice in the matter, at least in his own mind, Yifan bows his head down to their level, watching Baekhyun with one large golden eye as the chain is unraveled and carefully brought over his head, Baekhyun fussing and scolding Jongdae horribly not to get it caught on his horns and ruin all his hard work. In the end, when he lifts his head again, the flowered braid slips down to rest around his neck, delicate flowers pale against his hard bright scales, protected by magic from the heat of his fire. Baekhyun is all smiles, closer still to rearrange it, making sure all the spiraled camellias face upright.“There,” he murmurs, giving Yifan a pat, his hand like the barest brush of a feather. “It looks lovely on you.”





	you’re a flame in my heart.

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt Petal:** #226  
>  **Author's Note:** For you <3

It would have to be a long one.

Baekhyun trails slowly through the glade, bare feet soundless, not a blade of grass bent in his passing. There is still the edge of early morning frost on the ground, soft drifts of melting snow in shadowed places where the gentle spring sunshine has yet to reach. Of daisies, he finds plenty, although it is a long search this early in the springtime. There are few other flowers, and he is loath to pick them so young, pressing warm fingers into the earth by their roots instead, feeling them flourish and bloom all the brighter. Perhaps the next chain, he thinks, leaving them. But only daisies seemed – almost too simplistic, for all that was a daisy’s purpose, and he cannot help a growing petulance, a quiet unhappiness that brings down the mood of the forest as he wanders through it.

He happens upon a camellia bush, soft pink flowers turning toward him, beckoning him, and feels himself brighten. They are in full bloom, so he takes them, and slinks back to sit by the waterside and slowly weave them all together, humming to himself as he braids the stems. The glade is warmer now, quiet but for the soft movement of the water, the whisper and call of birds in the canopy above, the gentle sounds of animals passing by his hidden place. Baekhyun pays them no mind, really, focused on his task, nimble fingers working quickly on the braid, the chain lengthening, looping up beside him. It will have to be long, he is sure, because the Dragon was quite large, and if it wasn’t long it would not fit over his head. And he couldn’t simply make it a daisy chain crown, Baekhyun had already decided, quite sensibly, because the Dragon had to fly, and then it might blow off – even if he did fix it carefully around his great curved horns. No, the chain would have to be long, a soft springtime garland to wear around his scaled neck.

Once it’s finished, Baekhyun admires it a little while – after all, it was quite lovely, if he did say so, and very well made, with all the prettiest flowers, none of the stems broken or cracked where he’d braided them together. Then, satisfied, he gathers it up, picking his way quick-footed through the forest to a wider clearing. There is a large, lone oak here, sprung near the middle, its boughs spread wide across the new spring grass, and Baekhyun decks its branches with the garland, the wind catching soft flowers with its gentle fingers, drying it out slowly.

This step, too, is successful, and by the time Baekhyun returns later in the day the flowers have dried just enough. He takes them down slowly, fingers passing over every inch of the chain, imbuing it gently with long-last, with stay-bright, with life. He loops it all up carefully, joining the two ends together, and goes to find someone to go with him.

~

Jongdae is not, strangely, happy to see him.

Baekhyun marks it down as a fault of character, and charitably gives him the chance to change his mind.

“Come up the mountain with me?”

“What?” Jongdae asks, surprised away from whatever he’s doing (drawing, paper and charcoal spread out on the rock, the soft echo of a heart shaped face coming to life on the parchment, strange to match with the ice-carved being it belonged to). “No. I won’t go up the mountain with you again. You’ll only annoy him.”

“Absolutely not,” Baekhyun says staunchly. “I am a delight and he looks forward to my every visit.”

“Then go alone, if you’re so important.”

Baekhyun droops a little, and the whole space seems to dim. Jongdae makes a frustrated noise.

“Fine, _fine_ , I’ll go with you,” he says, because in the end he would have had to go anyway, he would never have been left in peace with his refusal.

Baekhyun brightens instantly, like a flash of sunrise. “Oh, _perfect_ , here, you can help.”

Jongdae allows himself to be burdened with half the flowered chain. At least, he thinks, it’s not so heavy as Baekhyun’s ice sculpture.

~

“O Mighty Dragon!” Baekhyun calls, stopped at the mouth of the cave, soft feet on worn-smooth stone warmed by the sunshine. “Most Feared and Illustrious of Beasts—”

“You know he doesn’t like that,” Jongdae protests, elbowing him hard.

‘No one could like that,’ comes the Voice, and Jongdae makes a face, but Baekhyun leaves off his annoyed complaining that he was hurt and bruised and feeling faint to turn bright eyes back toward the cavern.

The Dragon, having a mouth like a Dragon, could not speak words aloud but used the Voice to speak into the minds of those around him. Of course, this was an imperfect art, and more importantly the Dragon didn’t do it very often, so he was usually a bit louder than he intended to be. Baekhyun, who was already louder than anyone could have accounted for, didn’t mind it. Besides, the Dragon was coming out to them now, a massive drake of red and black and golden scales, with awful curved and jagged horns that grew from his immense head, and eyes as bright and dangerous as firestones.

He huffs out an annoyed breath and sits on his haunches, looking down at the two forest nymphs and their armfuls of flowering garland. This is not the first time they have graced him with their presence, although to be honest, he is half glad it’s flowers now. Spring would be a blessing.

Baekhyun, for his part, grins. “Yifan, I made you a daisy chain,” he exclaims, bright and excited, dragging Jongdae along with him to come closer. “It’s got camellias too, maybe when there’s more flowers in season, I can make another – hey, come down here, we can put it on you –”

Because he has no choice in the matter, at least in his own mind, Yifan bows his head down to their level, watching Baekhyun with one large golden eye as the chain is unraveled and carefully brought over his head, Baekhyun fussing and scolding Jongdae horribly not to get it caught on his horns and ruin all his hard work. In the end, when he lifts his head again, the flowered braid slips down to rest around his neck, delicate flowers pale against his hard bright scales, protected by magic from the heat of his fire. Baekhyun is all smiles, closer still to rearrange it, making sure all the spiraled camellias face upright.

“There,” he murmurs, giving Yifan a pat, his hand like the barest brush of a feather. “It looks lovely on you.”

‘Thank you,’ the Dragon says, a low rumble that Baekhyun feels all down his spine.

They don’t leave right away, because Baekhyun wants to tell Yifan all about his day, and the day before, and how lovely it is now that it’s spring, and to cajole him over coming down from the mountain to see everyone (mostly everyone), and to demand he tell them what he’s been up to (reading, Jongdae guesses wryly when Yifan weaves his way around not telling them anything of substance, and wonders not for the first time why Yifan is always in his Dragon form when Baekhyun comes to call).

~

“I think he was delighted.”

“You always think that.”

Baekhyun sticks his nose in the air. “Well, I know him best. Better than you at any rate. I know he loves when I visit. It can’t be much fun, stuck up in that cave being a stodgy old Dragon, so huge you can’t run through the fields or swim in the lake or sneak down by the village or into the Prince’s garden.”

Jongdae, well aware that Yifan has a perfectly respectable looking human form and can do all that whenever he likes, has no idea what to say to that and so says nothing at all. Luckily, Baekhyun has distracted himself, dragging him along to find Luhan, and they are still in the palace gardens well past midnight and into the witching hours, Prince Jongin roused from sleep and dancing with them through the ringed maze of moonflowers as if in a dream, his arms around Luhan, lost.

~

He makes another chain in a months’ time, daisy again because they’re so plentiful, primrose and freesia and clover braided in between. Luhan watches him make it, lounging along the side of the pool, his fingers trailing in the cool water, but he doesn’t comment. Jongdae finds them after Baekhyun’s strung it up to dry, and clearly he’s seen it, because he stands before Baekhyun with his arms crossed.

Baekhyun decides privately that he looks ridiculous, with his little crown of sparking lightning, standing there like it means anything while Baekhyun is bathed in light.

“What?”

“I’m not going with you this time.”

“I didn’t ask you to. Obviously.”

“Well, I won’t go,” Jongdae says again, sounding a bit deflated now that Baekhyun isn’t fighting him on it.

“I’m not going either,” Luhan lilts from his spot on the rocks. He’s resting his cheek on the crook of his arm now, gazing morosely into the pool, and Baekhyun thinks it would definitely be funny to push him in, but Jongdae is closer.

“I didn’t ask you either,” he says, sticking his nose in the air. “I’ll go alone, since you’re both spoil sports.”

Luhan sighs in a dreamy sort of way, but he’s been doing that terribly often. Jongdae had mentioned they should bring him to Junmyeon, but Baekhyun had protested they knew exactly what was wrong with him. (Jongdae had given him a look then, as if to say Baekhyun was one to talk, but Baekhyun had very wholeheartedly ignored him).

Jongdae uncrosses his arms, and throws himself into the warm bower of leaves beside Baekhyun, who promptly shoves him further away. “You shouldn’t bother Yifan,” he says, like he’s not righting himself.

“I told you, I’m not a bother,” Baekhyun protests, rather loudly. “He likes me, he always takes my presents. You’ll see.”

Luhan sighs again, and Jongdae scowls, but neither of them answer him, so Baekhyun gets up in a huff, and storms away, leaving them in a softening gloom.

~

The mountain is quiet.

Yifan prefers it that way, of course. He’s found himself a comfortable spot in his hoard – of course, even in this form he was quite comfortable lying on gold, but that was another thing entirely – and propped himself there with a book, head tipped back against a velvet cushion, idle fingers looped through and toying with a strand of sapphires. The book, one he borrowed from the Serpent King down in the darker part of the forest, was a history, and he was enjoying it so far. He had skipped the mentions of the forest nymphs and all their foolish capers, then gone back and read them, then been annoyed that he felt like he should, and then that he felt like he shouldn’t. There are other, older tales, of course – about himself, and the Phoenix with his sun bright fire, and the Serpent King drowning half the land to stop the flames.

There is a soft sound, like footsteps echoing up the canyon. Yifan groans, and lets the book rest over his face for a moment, annoyed.

Of course, when he puts it down properly he can see the nymph’s previous gift, where he strung it up above his treasures. It’s still bright and cheery, the flowers not drooping in the slightest, perfectly preserved in time from the moment Baekhyun plucked them. Would it be another flower chain? He had mentioned making another, when more flowers were in bloom, and…

Yifan gets up, shaking himself a little, rolling his shoulders and then transforming.

He couldn’t name what made him do it, every time – he knew it would be Baekhyun, skipping sure-footed along the mountain path, clambering over fallen rocks, humming to himself as he scooted along the narrowest edge of cliff before the cave entrance – there was certainly no reason not to show his human form. But Baekhyun was a lot to deal with, maybe, or he was so earnest, with his flowered garlands and his wreaths of winter berries and the crown of autumn leaves he’d woven around Yifan’s horns and –

It was embarrassing. It was simply that. He didn’t know Baekhyun’s meaning with these gifts, and it was embarrassing. And annoying, disturbing his plans for the day.

“Mightiest and Largest of Dragons, Bless this humble servant of the Forest with Your Immensitude—”

‘That’s not even a word.’

“Well, it ought to be,” Baekhyun says, grinning up at Yifan as the Dragon comes to the entrance of the cave and settles there, oblivious to his annoyance. “Anyway, see, I’m back! And I made you a new flower chain, I’m sure the old one is drooping now—” (of course it wasn’t, not with his magic) “—and I thought, now that there’s more flowers in bloom, I could make a brighter one. Cheerier, you know?”

Yifan sighs, shifting slowly, letting his head rest down against the stone as Baekhyun flits brightly forward. He doesn’t need to answer, because Baekhyun keeps talking anyway, nattering on as he bedecks Yifan with flowers, more work without extra hands, talking about the flowers and the sunshine and how nice it was down in the valley and Yifan should come down and play with them, honest, they were loads of fun – at least _he_ , Baekhyun, was loads of fun, and sometimes Prince Jongin was fun too, and maybe they could go bother someone, like the witch who lived deep in the forest and sold healing draughts on the full moon, or that cheeky fire demon who—

Yifan stands abruptly, shifting back, and the flowered chain is still caught on one of his horns, which probably looks truly ridiculous. Baekhyun stumbles backward, surprised.

‘No,’ is all he says, and then he disappears back into his cave, leaving the nymph alone.

~

“I don’t understand,” Baekhyun complains, whiny but quiet in an awestruck sort of way. The Serpent King slides into his seat, a great throne of stalagmites deep within the forest cave, surrounded by the soft bright play of light over water, the breathless sound of droplets falling into the quiet deep pool. He is partly a man now, but his long serpentine tail drags down into the water, disappearing in dark coils. Baekhyun hasn’t visited him in a long time – it wasn’t, he thought, a good idea to trouble him often. But he had always been a friend of the forest, too, and he was old, much older than stupid Jongdae and lovestruck Luhan, he would know…

“You should not trouble a Dragon,” Junmyeon scolds, however gently, watching Baekhyun’s distress with something close to fondness. 

Baekhyun’s expression twists with tragic anguish at that. “I’m not troubling him, why does everyone say that?”

“Now—”

“He’s my friend, our friend! I just want to talk to him sometimes, see him, he never comes down from that mountain! I just want him to like me!”

Baekhyun covers his mouth after he’s said it, starting to step back, like he’s loosed a terrible secret. Junmyeon, looking rather too sympathetic now, moves to reach for him, or perhaps beckon him closer – but Baekhyun flees the cave, sucking all the light from it in his wake.

~

He doesn’t go back up. He doesn’t want to believe it – can’t believe it, can’t let himself, but it must be true when so many of them had said it. Yifan found him bothersome, annoying, presumptuous, all those things Jongdae and Luhan had warned him of, all the things he’d been so insistent he wasn’t. Yifan didn’t want him around, didn’t want to see him, didn’t want his foolish presents or his ridiculous attention.

And that was fine, wasn’t it? He didn’t need his stupid little crush validated. He didn’t need to be liked out of pity. If Yifan didn’t like him – found him an irritant, a bother – then he would simply, he would let it go.

(How could he let it go?)

~

The twilight gloom that settles around the forest spreads slowly outwards, in creeping tentacles, like a dark fog covering the land with its dismal heaviness. In his caves, the Serpent King senses it, but he has done what little meddling he dares do – it is up to the others now, outside. Luhan is unbothered by the despairing atmosphere, caught up in his own daydreams, but when Prince Jongin mentions it to him of a quiet night, he promises to try and find the source as if he knows it not. Jongdae has already gone searching for Baekhyun, but Baekhyun was always the cleverest of them, the easiest and quickest to hide, and so he finds little in the way of traces of him, can only call for him to come out, to let them – him – help.

Yifan, atop his mountain, notices last of all. But of course, he did not spend many a day gazing down at the kingdom below – his attentions were on books, and his hoard of treasures, and the strings of delicate drying flowers hanging artfully from his ceiling. But he does notice, frowning down at the gathering dark, the way it hangs close around the forest as if to smother out all brightness there.

“You know, I think you hurt his feelings.” It’s a voice he hasn’t heard since last year. Summer, precisely, because that was when Chanyeol returned. Turning, he catches the last edges of trailing fire as the shape of a young man steps out of the burning corona of the Phoenix. The bright fire is quite a contrast to the darkness below, leaving afterimages in his eyes even as it disappears.

“I didn’t do anything, why are you blaming me? You weren’t here.”

Chanyeol snorts. “Oh, it was definitely you. He’s mad after you, I can tell.”

Yifan flushes and crosses his arms and wishes he was a dragon. It was much harder to look ungainly and embarrassed as a dragon. “He’s not.”

“Oh, no? Then who does he spend all day tra-la-laing about and weaving pretty flower braids for, hm?” Chanyeol asks, looking rather pleased with himself now, as if Yifan has no comeback for this. “Who did he make a great creeping crown of lilac for last spring? Who a sash of fiery roses, who bundles of daffodil and peony?”

Yifan turns away from him, but Chanyeol follows, all brightness. “What happened? Did you shout at him in your big dragon voice for disturbing your slumber?” he teases.

“No!”

“Hmm, cast him down from your mountain? Banish him from your sight? Throw away his gifts?” Even as he asks, he looks at the lovingly crafted chains of daisies strung up in the cave. “Well, obviously not.”

Yifan doesn’t want to answer him.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing. Just, you’re wrong. He doesn’t like me.”

“Who’s a better source than me?”

This is met with silence too, and Chanyeol sighs, absently dragging his fingers through a pile of gems. Yifan hears the skittering rush of gold and jewels slipping, sliding down the pile, and focuses on that.

“Fine, I’ll come see you later. Gotta go talk to our friends down in the forest. Been too long since summer came, yeah?”

Yifan turns, but he’s already gone.

~

He’s not precisely unexpected.

Baekhyun can feel it, of course, could sense the slow turn of the season, and now his darkness is gathering closer around him, crowded in by the bright blaze until it’s nothing but a gloomy aura clinging to his edges, Chanyeol standing bathed in flame before him like the morning sun.

“What’s this dreadful look? I much prefer you bright than eating up daylight. That can’t feel right.”

Baekhyun huffs, but his shoulders slump, and the consuming darkness starts to ease and dissipate as he releases the brilliant captive he’d hoarded in his heart, the natural light of the forest returning around them. Chanyeol’s flames burn low, slipping from sight as normalcy returns.

“How did you find me?” the nymph asks, sulky.

“Well, I followed the concentration of burgeoning despair,” the Phoenix answers lightly, offering him a hand and drawing him to his feet. They don’t match, Baekhyun in his floaty vine bound fabrics and Chanyeol in bright finery, as if he attended court and not a gathering of tricksome fae. 

“Planning on visiting the king?” Baekhyun asks him, mild, but Chanyeol only laughs, and draws him along to head back to his usual glade, where the others are lazing.

Jongdae looks up immediately, but Luhan doesn’t, fingertips trailing slowly through the pool, something delicate sparkling around his wrist. Chanyeol sits them down, and for a moment it’s an elegant, practiced sprawl, as if he sat a throne and not in their blooming bower, but then Baekhyun shoves his shoulder hard and he relaxes, ungainly and laughing and pleased. Mood broken, Jongdae takes the initiative to talk, telling him about their time in the forest, asking how his trip to the fae realm had gone (not so subtle, his probing for information about Minseok, and Baekhyun rolls his eyes). Chanyeol is more than happy to tell them everything despite Jongdae’s obvious self-interest, about Minseok and the Court of Ice, about the Timekeeper’s dire prediction for young Prince Jongin and Yixing’s concerned promise to visit them soon. Luhan’s attention is caught, of course, all concern and aching heartbreak, but Baekhyun finds it all terribly boring.

Chanyeol elbows him sharply. “You’re doing it again. What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing.”

“I doubt it. Did you and Yifan fight?”

Baekhyun flushes hotly. “You can’t fight with someone you barely know,” he complains, whinier, quiet.

Chanyeol sighs. “Baekhyun…”

“The Dragon told him to leave him alone, finally,” Luhan butts in, a bit sharply. He’s frowning, sitting upright now, his ephemeral robes gathered up around him, a hand on the glittering chain wrapped around his delicate wrist. “Probably sick of his endless chatter.”

“That’s not fair,” Jongdae starts, all gentle reproach, but Luhan turns on him, vehement, frustrated and—

Baekhyun tunes them out. He knows Luhan is just worried. But that was it, wasn’t it? That was why. Yifan didn’t like him, couldn’t stand him any longer.

Despite Chanyeol’s bolstering fire, the forest plunges into darkness.

~

“Listen, I know what you’re going to say, but I really think you ought to reconsider your stance,” comes a voice, and the Dragon stirs slowly, recognizing it finally, sighing out a little huff of superheated air and transforming slowly down into his human form. The cave is very dark, so it must be quite late, but Yifan doesn’t feel particularly tired.

“What am I going to say?”

Chanyeol grimaces, pushing his fingers through his hair. “That I’m wrong, and then you’ll get all cranky like you’re going to demand I vacate your presence again.”

Yifan arches an eyebrow at him, not bothering to refute it.

“Just, just – look,” Chanyeol says, sounding a bit apprehensive, frustrated. He grabs for Yifan’s hand and tugs him along, back through the cave to the mouth, and Yifan has to wonder what has him so frustrated.

Outside his cave, the world is all blackness. In fact, aside from Chanyeol’s current corona of red-gold fire and his own restrained white flame, there is nothing, not light, no hint of stars or moon above, no distant firelight from the castle or the village at it’s gates, no strange dancing faerie lights in the forest below. Nothing.

“I got here first, so you have to see reason, alright, before Junmyeon punishes him or something. I know he’s got his rules and that’s all well and good but it’s not, it’s nothing if Baekhyun’s still this upset,” Chanyeol rambles out, pleading, still holding onto his arm.

Yifan frowns harder at the blackness, but it gives nothing up. “Baekhyun did this?”

“Not, uhm, I wouldn’t say it was on _purpose_ ,” he mumbles, evasive, deflating somewhat.

It was almost impressive. Especially now, thinking about it, he’s certain it should be morning. This isn’t like Baekhyun bathing the land below in his gloomy mood, this was more like…

“You want me to come down?” Yifan asks, slowly, every word deliberate.

Chanyeol lets out a huffy breath. “Only if it will help. Why are you upset with him? Luhan said you told him to leave you alone, and then there’s you insisting to me that he doesn’t like you—”

“Because he likes _you_ ,” Yifan bursts out, unable to stop himself. He is not at all pleased with the surprised laughter he gets in response.

“That’s, oh, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so funny,” Chanyeol finally manages, after far too much time wasted laughing, in Yifan’s opinion. Playing it up on purpose, to his mind.

“He’s always waiting on you,” he accuses, aware now that he sounds a bit petulant.

Chanyeol snorts. “Yeah, because we’re friends. Because spring and summer are his favorite times. Because generally he wants to hear all about the news of the Realm and how all our friends are getting on, but suddenly now, today, he doesn’t want to hear anything, he just wants to sink into misery.” He pauses to glance over, and Yifan looks, at least somewhat, suitably chastised. “You know we’re friends, Yifan. Just like you and I are friends, despite past differences. But Baekhyun _likes_ you, that’s something else.”

“I guess it is,” the Dragon murmurs, frowning.

Chanyeol sighs very dramatically. “Listen, you can be all – mopey, and _you_ later, yeah? Come down with me. We have to find him before Junmyeon does, I don’t want him to get banished or anything.”

Yifan huffs as though he means to point out that the Serpent King would never do anything so drastic, as the nymphs were his favorites, but in the end he thinks perhaps he doesn’t want to risk it. Without another word, he steps back and transforms, Chanyeol’s human shape consumed in the bright flame of the Phoenix as they both swoop down from the mountain into world below.

~

Baekhyun, for all his cleverness and spitefulness, doesn’t know what he’s done.

At first he thinks it will stop – but it _doesn’t_ , and the longer it lasts the deeper the gloom gets, the heavier this awful feeling in his chest, wound tight and trapped under his skin.

“Just – I don’t know, let it out?” Jongdae suggests, somewhere next to him, but Baekhyun shakes his head vehemently, eyes closed tight.

“I _can’t_.”

Luhan has been silent since his outburst, apologetically so even, but he moves closer now, a featherlight hand resting on Baekhyun’s arm. “You can, we know you can…”

Baekhyun wants to retort that they only know he’s unlikeable and annoying, but he doesn’t. Luhan was only worried about the Prince – he hadn’t _really_ meant those things he said.

Their little glade is lit, soft and warm and unexpected, but Baekhyun doesn’t dare open his eyes yet. Besides, it’s only Chanyeol, he can tell.

“Can you two give us a moment?” he asks, and it’s definitely Chanyeol, and Baekhyun thinks about him in his embroidered finery, probably come straight from Minseok’s court, coming here to bring the warm breath of summer to the Kingdom. Luhan’s hand disappears, and Jongdae’s close crackling warmth, and Baekhyun wonders if Chanyeol had planned to visit Junmyeon after seeing them, make his obeisance, imagines the Serpent King’s quiet amusement, imagines—

“Baekhyun, you can open your eyes.”

This, this is a different voice, and not a Voice but similar to it, a similar quality, and Baekhyun is confused enough that he does just as he’s told. The man he finds standing there is strange – both human and not, curled horns and broad leather wings flickering in and out, like an afterimage. Chanyeol, he sees, has given them some space.

“Hey,” says the man who is a Dragon who is, clearly, Yifan, and Baekhyun has never seen him like this, didn’t even know he could look like this.

He moves to stand up, careful, and the gloom around Yifan isn’t quite so much, but it isn’t particularly light, either. “You came down,” he offers, throat unsticking but just barely, and Yifan laughs awkwardly.

“I came down,” he agrees, gnawing at his lip – awkward, he was awkward, had he been so awkward as a Dragon? but then the body language of an Ancient and Tremendous Lizard King was a bit different than a human-ish body – “because I was, I was rude to you the other day. I didn’t thank you for your gift.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth, then closes it again. The blackness of the forest seems to lessen around them, until he can make out the shapes of the trees, the glade, but he assumes it’s Chanyeol’s bright fire. “Did, did you like it? I mean, of course it’s just – silly, and I’m sure it’s very annoying, having me bothering you up in your Mountain all the time – I’m sorry, I really am, I didn’t mean to be annoying, I only wanted—”

“I love it,” Yifan blurts out, then looks down, rather red faced. The forest is definitely brighter. “Uhm, I mean, I like when you visit. And I like the things you make me. They’re always beautiful.”

“You do?”

Yifan makes a face, stressed, looks somewhere past Baekhyun – Chanyeol, off behind him, gives him a Very Serious Look –and then sighs. “Very much.”

“You never say so,” Baekhyun accuses, a little whiny. “You never come down, either, and how come I’ve never seen you like this? Always a Dragon when I come to visit, all Mysterious and Large—”

“I didn’t, I didn’t want to talk about this,” Yifan mumbles, and Chanyeol clears his throat pointedly, and the light is almost normal for perhaps twilight, rather than mid-morning. Baekhyun is staring at him, all big eyes, the usual soft encircling of sparkling light around his flower bedecked hair gone dark still. “I didn’t want you to know I – like you.”

Baekhyun thinks about asking him to repeat it, but Yifan looks awfully embarrassed. He will get him to say it again another time. Maybe when Chanyeol isn’t rudely eavesdropping on their make up chat. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he points out, not entirely unkindly, and Yifan practically _whines_ , wishing again for his other form.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” he explains, and Baekhyun very nicely ignores the derisive sound Chanyeol makes behind them but files it away to complain about later.

“Didn’t like you? After— well, everything?”

“I know it was stupid.”

“Ridiculous.”

“And shortsighted, yes, I’m aware.”

“Completely preposterous, you…”

“Well, what am I?”

“A foolish – Utterly Absurd and Illogical, the Most Ludicrous of Beings, O Silly and Imprudent Dragon, please bestow upon me Your—”

He doesn’t get to finish, but that’s just as well. Yifan kisses him, sweet and sudden, a flash of endless clarity, and the warm morning light rushes back out into the world.


End file.
